Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China's Era of High Socialism

摘要

This fascinating and empirically grounded volume begins with the provocative assertion that, "[w]hen analyzed as history, the Mao Zedong era (1949-1978) looks different than it did when scrutinized by social scientists." Such analyses of the period, in the editors' view, "have been mainly top-down and state-focused," and less concerned with explaining "processes of change and continuity over time from the perspective of unknown historical actors" (p. 1)， a broad characterization that sets to the side the fine-grained and nuanced bottom-up approaches adopted by social scientists like Elizabeth Perry, Andrew Walder, Neil Diamant, Elizabeth Remick and many others. Nonetheless, this truly impressive collection goes a long way in enriching our understanding of and appreciation for the diversity and variety of experiences of individual life at the social grassroots during the period of "high socialism" that lasted from the mid-1950s until 1980, and sets a new standard for interdisciplinary historically grounded research in the field.